Last month was a difficult time for the South Florida Jewish
community.On April 29, 2008, vandals defaced
a Parkland, Florida synagogue with spray-painted swastikas and statements
lauding Hitler.One week prior to that, another
synagogue in nearby North Miami Beach
was set on fire.Anti-Semitism is on the
rise in South Florida, and it’s incumbent upon
the community to understand what groups have created this atmosphere for the
area.

“Here we go again. Another
swastika drawn the wrong way. These are definitely idiots that are just playing
a prank, or even Jewish kids looking for sympathy. If you asshole out there
have to draw the swastika, draw it right. Have some respect.”

The above
quote was written by a member of Stormfront, a worldwide white supremacist
internet forum based in West Palm
Beach, Florida.It was concerning an incident that took place
in Parkland, Florida only two nights before.A boy being driven to school by his mom
discovered three swastikas scrawled on the walls of the synagogue he and his
family attend, Chabad of Parkland.Along
with one of the swastikas was the word “HEIL,” and an adjacent STOP sign
contained the words “4 Hitler.”

The author of the piece goes by
the name “EASTCOAST WARRIOR,” and he/she uses a gun as an icon for his/her
posts.

Another Stormfront member,
“richyrichard,” whose icon is a Nazi symbol containing an eagle and a swastika,
stated the following about the incident, “When someone paints or photographs a
porno queen, the media calls it art. When someone paints a swastika, the media
calls it vandalism. But now, lets look closer. Who publishes photos of the
swastikas all over the national news for everyone to see? Who, then, is the
real vandal? Since the story sells, who has the greatest motive to paint the
swastika?”

Stormfront was founded in January of 1995 by West Palm
resident Don Black, the former
Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK).He succeeded David Duke as leader of the KKK,
in 1980.Today, Black has a radio talk
show with Duke, which he hosts at Stormfront.

Being a website based on ‘white power’ advocacy, unabashed
racists, including Klansmen, neo-Nazis and skinheads, convene on Stormfront’s
forums to curse blacks and others they deem to be ‘non-white.’There is also a general obsession with
anything concerning Jews.The media, the
government, even the Holocaust are all Jewish conspiracies on Stormfront.

Less than 24 hours from the desecration in Parkland, the
following was posted on Stormfront by “A8L,” under the title, ‘Imagine
our America – Today – Without the Jew’: “IF this
horrid plague upon mankind that we know today as the JEW – had been eradicated
by their victims – like the black plague of the middle ages – consider the
effect on the United States... Today – thanks to the Jews and their ceaseless
efforts to stir up divisive racial hatred... we now have a country full of
niggers... Jews are MASTERS of creating hatred where there was none. No Jews –
no race problems... We cannot undo the horrendous damages inflicted by the Jew
filth in the past – BUT we can halt further destruction taking a stand against
our REAL MORTAL enemy and destroy
the beast before it destroys us totally. Take this country back – or lose it
forever! GAME OVER!”

And the day of the incident, April
28th, at 1:20 PM, “tellthetruth357”
wrote on Stormfront, under the title, ‘To solve our problems do the unthinkable’:
“The problem is we have too many enemies. The Jews have made us and the Arabs
enemies. We never had any problem with the Arabs prior to Israel. Mexicans are pouring over
our border. The problem is Blacks, Orientals, Mexicans, Arabs and everyone else
don’t understand that the Jew is everyone’s enemy.”

Could it be that this was the catalyst that triggered the defiling
of the synagogue?Or possibly it came
from an entirely different direction – the radical Muslim community.

Fewer than 20 minutes northeast of Chabad of Parkland is the
Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR).The
mosque has had a storied
connection to a number of terrorist organizations.

One of ICBR’s former imam’s, Muneer Arafat, admitted under
oath that he was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).One of the mosque’s former members, Rafiq
Sabir, was convicted, last year, of conspiracy to provide material support to
Al-Qaeda.One of its former directors, Syed Khawer Ahmad, was the creator and webmaster for the
official website of Hamas’s charitable and educational apparatus, the Islamic
Association (Al-Jamiya Al-Islamia).And
one of its current Directors, Bassem Alhalabi, was a research assistant for
imprisoned PIJ leader Sami Al-Arian.

From October of 1999 till September of 2001, ICBR’s website
contained a violently anti-Semitic article, entitled ‘Why
can’t the Jews and Muslims live together in peace?’In it, it was stated, “There cannot be
harmony between Jews – who are usurpers and aggressors, who have oppressed and
persecuted others, and who are known for their treachery and corruption
throughout the world, historically and in the present age... In addition to
this, the Jews are people of treachery and betrayal; it is not possible to
trust them at all... [The ‘Prophet’ Muhammad] said, ‘You will fight the Jews
and will prevail over them, so that a rock will say, O Muslim! There is Jew
behind me, kill him!’”

On April 22, 2008, during Passover, the Chabad on Wheels
synagogue, located in North Miami
Beach, was set aflame, a suspected arson attack.

The day of the fire, Stormfront forum member “TaN00Ki,”
whose user icon is that of Hitler in an arm outstretched “Seig Heil” stance, declared,
“Well
jews make themselves enemies everywhere; face the
white man’s wrath after all this corruption and sabotage in white nations or go
home and face muslim’s anger avenging their own losses. Reap what you sow...”

23 minutes from the Miami Beach Chabad resides the American
Muslim Association of North America (AMANA).AMANA is run by Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, the former Vice President of
the Hamas-affiliatedHeath
Resource Center for Palestine (HRCP).

From December of 2002 till September of 2003, AMANA’s
website featured an article, next to a picture of the WorldTradeCenter in flames,
entitled, ‘The
Call for the Unity of Religions – A False and Dangerous Call.’ It stated, “The
Christians and Jews want the Muslims to be like them.That is why they support this deceptive call
for ‘unity’... They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith),
and thus that you all become equal (like one another)... One of the fundamental
beliefs in Islaam is the kufr (unbelief) of the Christians and Jews because
they reject the Qur’aan and the message of Muhammad to them... Any Muslim who
doubts their kufr is a kaafir [unbeliever] himself.”

As well, from May of 2003 till
October of 2006, AMANA had on its website a PowerPoint presentation, which
ended with the statement, “Please help us protect our children from the zionist
jews.”

On April 6th, weeks before the
synagogue attacks, AMANA held its 3rd Annual Festival, what it called a ‘2008
Bazaar & BBQ’ [PDF]. At the
event, Zakkout manned a table of books, pamphlets and audio CDs that were being
given out to the public.The authors of
these books included: the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna;
the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami (the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan), Sayyid
Abul Ala Maududi; “unindicted co-conspirator” of the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing, Bilal Philips; anti-Christian and anti-Semite, Ahmed Deedat; and the
individual in which Islam’s fundamentalist sect Wahhabism was named for,
Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab.

Some quotes from the AMANA books
include:

“Muslims’
imitation of the disbelievers. Such imitation is injurious to the
collective existence of Muslims... [T]he Prophet [Muhammad] has advised
Muslims to shun this kind of imitation.He said: ‘Oppose the Jews and the Christians.’” (Sayyid AbulAla
Maududi, The Question of Dress)

“[T]he
Muslims had to fight the Jews as well as the other enemies of Islam. All
the efforts of Rasulullah [‘Prophet’ Muhammad] to live in peace with the
Jews failed... Allah says about the Jews in the Quran, ‘Isn’t it the case,
every time they (the Jews) make an agreement, some party among them throws
it aside. The truth is most of them are without faith.’” (Abid’ullah Ghazi
and Tasneema K. Ghazi, Mercy to Mankind: Life of Muhammad Rasulullah)

“The
Zionists know only too well that [if] the Muslims unite, the end of Israel
would be just at hand.” (Sayyid AbulAla Maududi, Unity of the
Muslim World)

The anti-Semitism spewing forth from these groups could make
life very tough for the Jewish community, in Parkland, Miami and elsewhere.And while this is nothing new for Jews, who
have suffered pain derived from hate groups for centuries, it is certainly no
excuse for its continuance.

In putting out this information, this author does not
suggest that the aforementioned organizations or individuals had any direct involvement
in the crimes that were perpetrated against the two South
Florida synagogues this month.Nevertheless, given their close proximity to the houses of worship, one
could certainly surmise that the groups have created an environment ripe with
the type of hatred and incitement that would lend motivation for such attacks
to occur.

It is therefore the recommendation of this author that these
organizations be investigated for their potential indirect roles in the
aforementioned crimes and hate speech leading to possible future incidents.Yes, these groups have the freedom to publicly
announce their views – however despicable those views may be – but virulent hatred
such as this is one step away from a deed and, as such, cannot be ignored.

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